For the record...

These were not exactly serious postings to xml-dev either:

• MMIX Interperter in XSLT
  
• Applying Financial Technical Analysis Techniques to XML Validation
  
• Nanotech implementation of XSLT engine
  
• Quantum Markup Language
  
• RTF to XML Converter in Perl
  

XML is 0x0A

XML is 10 years old. Coverage is widespread. I'll be writing up my own little retrospective but not just yet.

For now. Suffice it to say that all my e-mails to xml-dev over the years have not all been serious.

Simple productivity tips for the PC user

On the apparent correlations - empirically discovered and herein reported - between simplicity and efficacy when facing day-to-day PC productivity problems:
Simple productivity tips for the PC user

Is this the right room for an argument?

My favorite 30 seconds of Monty Python's Flying Circus occurs in The Argument Sketch:

M: Ah, Is this the right room for an argument?
A: I told you once.
M: No you haven't.
A: Yes I have.
M: When?
A: Just now.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: You didn't
A: I did!
M: You didn't!
[etc...]

Now I'm not predicting an argument but I am predicting some lively debate at The Mashup, Microformats and Mobile Web Panel.
Topics for discussion include:

• Is the phrase "reliable mashup application" an oxymoron?
  
• Will we ever see one syndication format emerge to dominate or is babelisation inevitable? Desirable?
  
• Do microformats need governance in order to work?
  
• Is the mobile web a technological superset subset or mutation of the "original" web?
  
• Can MMS be equated with WAP. Would that be a category error?
  
• Has blogging run its course as a phenomenon?
  
• Are microformats running out of steam or gathering steam?
  
• How many forms of digital identity will I need to use the Web in 2010?
  

Arc pulls no punches

"Arc embodies just about every form of political incorrectness possible in a programming language. It doesn't have strong typing, or even type declarations; it uses overlays on hash tables instead of conventional objects; its macros are unhygienic; it doesn't distinguish between falsity and the empty list, or between form and content in web pages; it doesn't have modules or any predefined form of encapsulation except closures; it doesn't support any character sets except ascii. Such things may have their uses, but there's also a place for a language that skips them." -- arclanguage.org

At first blush, one might dismiss such a programming language. Some people might be so inclined on all of the grounds mentioned above. Some (like me) on a subset of them.

However, when you see this tacked on to the end...

Paul Graham
Robert Morris

You know you need to keep an eye on it.

How to learn to love simple electronic filing systems

On some surprisingly effective information management techniques for office-centric data; and on the concomitant appropriation of the term "management" by the relational database industry; and sundry matters vaguely associated thereto. Be it exposited as follows:
How to learn to love simple electronic filing systems

XTech 2008

I will have the honor later this year of doing one of those keynote things at XTech 2008. I'm noodling what approach to take and have not discussed it with the organizers yet....But I intend talking about XML, REST, Mobility, Identity, Digital Rights and other such things, probably via some scenic Celtic routes. Partaking of commodius vici of recirculation, irregular and troublesome verbs, bloody battles, some extremely interesting old books and the odd tincture of IT related Philosophical Investigations.